New System to Request Special Collections and Archives Materials

USMA Library has implemented a new online system to request materials for research from our Unique Resources (formerly Special Collections and Archives). This new process eases the scheduling of research appointments and provides greater material accountability for researchers and library staff alike. Researchers will need to create an account upon first use. Please visit https://usmalibrary.aeon.atlas-sys.com/ to create an account and request materials. USMA cadets, faculty, and staff may also visit the West Point Room (422) on the fourth floor of Bartlett to request access to materials during scheduled research hours. Research hours are 0730-1700 Monday through Friday excluding Federal Holidays and inclement weather days (Code Red/Code White).

USMA Library Hosts Forbidden Art Exhibit with support of The Polish Mission

From 10 February to 12 March 2017, in commemoration of the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Jefferson Library of the US Military Academy will display the Forbidden Art exhibit. Forbidden Art is a collection of twenty examples of artwork created by concentration/death camp inmates. Dr. Piotr Cywinski, the Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, ceremonially opened the exhibition on 09 February. The Forbidden Art exhibit has been displayed across the US, including at the Eisenhower Presidential Museum and Library, and at the United Nations. The Forbidden Art exhibit is displayed at West Point thanks to the Polish Mission of the Orchard Lake Schools and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

Chat Reference Reminder

Last fall, USMA Library launched a new service offering chat assistance via the library website. Look for the icon in the lower right-hand corner of any page on our site to get assistance in using library resources. Cadets, faculty, and staff are also always welcome to stop by and receive assistance through our service floor coordinator on the second floor of Jefferson Hall Library and Learning Center.

Jefferson Hall Digital Signage Coming in Spring 2017

Later this semester, we will light up new signs in Jefferson Hall to provide better wayfinding and event information for Jefferson Hall, along with information designed to improve awareness of library services and resources.

Personal Librarians for Plebes

As research assignments begin in the new semester, plebes should remember to be in touch with their personal librarian, introduced through email, to request any assistance. Librarians can help you find the right information you will need to excel in your research. Be sure to take advantage of the service provided to you!

With the completion of the renovation of Bartlett Hall, our service operations supporting Unique Resources (Special Collections and Archives) have now moved to their new and permanent home on the fourth floor of Bartlett Hall North. Users seeking to access rare books, special research collections, or archival material will now visit this location for access. We will host an open house in this location for all cadets, faculty, and staff on Friday, September 9th during Commandant’s Hour (1250-1345). We will begin regular operating hours – Monday through Friday 0730-1700 – on Monday September 12th.

We are also launching a new system to deliver collection information, finding aids, and to manage researcher appointments and inquiries on the web this fall. Visit the USMA Library website soon for more information about these expanded services.

Library Launches New Chat Service

Researchers using the USMA Library’s website can now get assistance from Library staff via chat. Just click the chat icon in the lower right corner of your Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browser (Internet Explorer is not currently supported). If staff are not immediately available, you will be prompted to leave your email address and we will follow-up. We are experimenting with this service and feedback is welcome.

Selected New Resources Available for Research

Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS) Reports, a collection of translated of foreign-language monographs, reports, serials, journal and newspaper articles, and radio and television broadcasts. The coverage emphasizes Communist and developing countries and runs from 1957-1995. This online product replaces a microfiche set and associated printed index. URL: http://usma.libguides.com/go.php?c=24659208

Revolutionary War Era Orderly Books from the New-York Historical Society, a primary source collection of handwritten volumes documenting military orders, movements and engagements by brigade, regiment, company and other specific military units between 1748 and 1817. The content in Orderly Books provides detailed accounts of troops’ daily lives, documenting everything from court martial cases to the price of necessities charged by locals. URL: http://usma.libguides.com/go.php?c=24659413

We’re in the process of activating access to Secret Files from World Wars to Cold War (URL: http://www.secretintelligencefiles.com/), a collection of primary sources from National Archives U.K. Document series included are:

Published annually by USMA Library, our 2015-17 Program Review describes significant program accomplishments during the 2015-16 academic year and also looks forward at where we are headed in the 2016-17 year. Digital copies are available on the USMA Library website at http://www.usma.edu/library/SitePages/ProgramReview.aspx.

Personal Librarian Initiative Coming Soon for Plebes

Librarians will soon be reaching out with their contact information to members of the fourth class in order to provide a personal point-of-contact to make sure that plebes can get any library/research-related questions answered as quickly and easily as possible. Research assistance is always available to all cadets and faculty via our service desks and through our website.

Jefferson Hall Access Changes

East and West entrances to Jefferson Hall are now CAC-accessible by authorized cadets, faculty, and staff during posted Library hours. All others should use the South entrance facing Bartlett Hall for access. The general public must be escorted by authorized Library users, or have an appointment with Library staff for access.

Historical Interpretative Panels Installed on Jefferson Hall Terrace

Visitors to the Library’s sixth floor terrace will now find three interpretative panels that discuss the history of West Point through visible landmarks. Later this fall, the Library will launch an accompanying website with more information and links to library collections and resources.”

Celeste Evans, information services librarian, and Latisha Taylor, information resources technician, explain to cadets the assistance they can obtain at the information desk.

On 23 and 24 August, cadets enrolled in the Center for Enhanced Performance’s RS 100 course spent some very active time in the Jefferson Hall, finding their way from one service point to another and learning about Library resources, services, and staff along the way. The Library Poker Runs are designed to get cadets familiar with the people here at the Library who can help them in their studies, and with the resources they can use to complete the assignments they’ll have throughout their time at West Point.

Sharon Gillespie, information services technician, speaks with cadets about how they can be helped at the welcome/circulation desk.

Cadets are given a checklist of locations (the Welcome/Circulation Desk, Info Desk/Reference Librarian/Print Stations, and the home of ourUnique Resources collection and staff – newly relocated to the West Point Room in Bartlett Hall North) and are directed to complete a task at each checkpoint.

The tasks help the plebes learn a multitude of research-related skills, such as how to search within our collections using Scout! – the Library’s discovery tool; how to renew books online; what to do when the Library doesn’t have an article or book they need (hint: Inter-Library Loan!); and the difference between primary and secondary sources. A highlight of the Poker Run is a visit to the Unique Collections and USMA Archives in the West Point Room, where this semester they saw Custer’s demerits (all six pages of them!), the West Point Post Order book that included an account of Edgar Allan Poe’s court-martial, and Civil War-era maps by Jeremy Gilmer (USMA 1939).

Elaine McConnell, rare book curator, shares with cadets one of Jeremy Gilmer’s Civil War era maps.

Rik Miller, systems technician, explains using the print stations located in the Library.

After completing each task, the cadets draw a card, and the cadet team with the best poker hand at the end of class wins a prize from their instructor. Over 100 cadets participated in these Poker Runs, and judging from discussions with them at the end of class, everyone learned something new that they felt would help them throughout their academic career at West Point.

The mission of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. It works with governments to understand what drives economic, social and environmental change. It measures productivity and global flows of trade and investment and analyzes and compares data to predict future trends. See more about OECD. See member countries.

OECD iLibrary, their global knowledge base, is the online library of the OECD featuring its books, papers (including journals) and statistics and is the gateway to OECD’s analysis and data, replacing SourceOECD.*

Features:

Read: using your computer, tablet or smartphone

Browse: by theme, country or both, and statistics

Search:

■ Simple search or advanced search through the search box, then refine results by content type or theme/country
■ Theme, then select Books, Papers or Statistics

Navigate: by Book, Papers, Statistics, Factbook, Glossaries (grouped together to filter by many parameters)

This example shows the various formats in which your output is available.

DATA sets are fully interactive and customizable. Note also, that a simple click on “cite this database” will provide a citation for insertion into your paper’s bibliography.

An Indicators data set can be presented in a chart, map or table.

Watch this navigating OECD iLibary video for additional assistance on other searching options.

Who should use this collection?

It is a useful resource for students of development, growth, and comparative and international economics. Also, those studying geography and environmental engineering, energy, water and natural resources, as well as statisticians/researchers in research and development, healthcare and world trade would benefit.

Summary

OECD iLibrary is an excellent resource for primary research information and data, particularly relevant for economics, political science, international relations, and other social science papers and assignments. Using the OECD iLibrary is much more efficient than scouring the open Internet for similar information.

Coverage from the 1990s into the 2010s

Numerous entry points to information

Information is available in your choice of formats

Data sets are interactive with customizable output

Ease of citation

* OECD iLibrary also contains content published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) [our subscription to IEA data offers full access to all publications of the IEA including the statistical annuals providing you with the same data as in the data sets, but in PDF format], the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), the OECD Development Centre,PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), and the International Transport Forum (ITF).

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. No endorsement or recommendation of any specific products or services is intended or implied.

Contents contributed by Manja Yirka, Continuing Resources Librarian and Liaison Librarian to the Department of Chemistry and Life Sciences.

USMA Library offers its engineering students IEEE Xplore, a most important engineering resource.

Content Coverage

Besides being a product of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the leading authority on electrical engineering and computer science, the IEEE Xplore digital library provides online access to almost four million full-text technical publications dating back to 1893, including standards and professional development courses. IEEE Xplore is not, however, limited to electrical engineering as its topic coverage has grown to include materials from overlapping research areas, for example, biotechnology, information assurance, and transportation. In addition to offering IEEE publications, IEEE Xplore hosts publications from several other technical information publishers, for example, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and IBM. Publications from three new technical publishers were also recently added: Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE), Beijing Institute of Aerospace Information (BIAI), and Tsinghua University Press (TUP). Table 1 lists IEEE Xplore content coverage in more detail.

Table. 1 Xplore Content Coverage

Basic Functionality

IEEE Xplore can be searched using keywords, phrases, article titles, authors, index terms, and other criteria. After an initial search, users have the option to view, download, print, refine and search within results lists, view tables of contents, evaluate bibliographic records, and interact with multimedia files, including embedded formulas.

To begin a Basic Search, navigate to IEEE Xplore. The default setting is on Basic Search. The global search box is where users input keyword(s) to be searched within document metadata (not full-text). As an example, the term “Security” has been entered. After the term is entered, click the Search button to the right of the global search box and documents with the metadata term “Security” will be retrieved.

Figure 1. Global Search

The resulting list contains 146,702 documents listed down the lower center of the screen in intervals of 25 (see Figure 2). Users can further investigate a result by clicking on its title. Users can also investigate any one of the other several bibliographic elements included in the citation by clicking on the respective hyperlinked element. A result’s full-text can, in most cases, be viewed directly on the browser in HTML. Alternatively, users can also download the full-text in PDF format.

Figure 2. Results list

Users should keep several things in mind when performing a Basic Search. The default Basic Search is set to only search keywords in metadata, not the full-text of documents. This is fine if you prefer to have more refined initial results. However, if you are not getting enough results you may want to expand the search to allow for IEEE Xplore to search for keywords throughout the full-text. This can be accomplished by first clicking the Advanced Search option (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Click Advanced Search option

On the next screen (see Figure 4), switch the Search radio button selection from Metadata Only to Full-Text & Metadata.

Figure 4. Select Full-Text & Metadata Search option radio button

There are several less known, but very useful literature analytic capabilities offered by IEEE Xplore. To name a few, IEEE Xplore allows users to count citations from patents to research papers. This is a handy tool to trace the intellectual lineage of a technical invention and measure research impact. Similarly, IEEE Xplore can produce a visual display showing citations to and from a given article, allowing users to better grasp the articles sematic context. Users can also quickly identify cutting-edge research articles that are generating social media buzz through the use of altmetric functionality provided by IEEE Xplore.

Who might be interested in using IEEE Xplore?

Uncovering the USMA departments and research centers that contribute publications to the IEEE Xplore collection provides insight into the most common users. Using IEEE Xplore, I executed an Author Affiliation search looking for articles published by USMA affiliated authors. There were a total of 311 publications affiliated with USMA ranging from 1945-2016 (see Figure 5). Out of those publications, 260 were conference proceedings and 51 were journal and magazine articles.

Figure 5. List of USMA results

The following USMA departments and research centers were represented among the results:

Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering

Department of Physics

Department of Systems Engineering

Operations Research Center

Photonics Research Center

Cadets and faculty from the aforementioned departments will find IEEE Xplore an essential information resource.

IEEE Xplore provides several short tutorials that new users may find helpful. The following hyperlinked list presents a few:

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. No endorsement or recommendation of any specific products or services is intended or implied.

On 24 March 1958, Elvis Presley was admitted into the U.S. Army. He signed up at the induction station in Memphis, TN, and eventually arrived at Fort Hood, TX for training. Presley left Fort Hood September 19, 1958 to join the 3rd Armored Division in Germany, where he completed his required two years of active duty.

Presley’s connection to West Point? His hit song “Love Me Tender” was an adaptation of a Civil War era song titled “Aura Lea” – which had earlier become associated with West Point as the song “Army Blue.”

From “Cadet Required Knowledge” (published by the United States Corps of Cadets at West Point): “Army Blue” is the traditional tune played for “Graduating Class, Front and Center, March” when the First Class steps out of ranks for the final time as cadets, and also played for the last dance at all hops. It had its beginning as the song of the Class of 1865. The first stanzas were written by L. W. Becklaw and the tune is that of an old minstrel song, “Aura Lea.” As years passed, innumerable verses were added to this and only a few of the more renowned can be presented. “Old plebe camp” has disappeared in the passing of Camp Clinton, once the scene of summer training. The words still live, however, with the Fourth Class Bivouac during the last week of Beast Barracks.

ARMY BLUE

We’ve not much longer here to stay,
For in a month or two,
We’ll bid farewell to “Cadet Gray,”
And don the “Army Blue.”

CHORUS: Army Blue, Army Blue,
Hurrah for the Army Blue,
We’ll bid farewell to “Cadet Gray,”
And don the “Army Blue.”

With pipe and song we’ll jog along,
Till this short time is through,
And all among our jovial throng,
Have donned the Army Blue.

(CHORUS):

T’was the song we sang in old plebe camp,
When first our Gray was new.
The song we sang on summer nights,
That song of Army Blue.

(CHORUS)

Now, fellows, we must say goodbye,
We’ve stuck our four years thru,
Our future is a cloudless sky,
We’ll don the Army Blue.

(CHORUS)

To the men and women of the Corps,
Who’ve seen their four years thru,
The work was hard, they did their part,
And all for Army Blue.

The USMA Library recently added a new database to its arsenal of electronic resources, Gallup Analytics. Featuring Gallup polling data from the United States and around the world, our new database incorporates the Gallup Brain (previously offered by the library) as one major component, however it is a much expanded resource. Gallup Analytics provides essential public opinion data that is invaluable to research in a wide range of departments including Social Sciences, Behavioral Sciences & Leadership, Geography & Environmental Engineering, History, and Military Instruction – anywhere, in fact, that requires knowledge about how a given topic is viewed by the public.

Economic, social and well-being data collected since 2005 in over 160 countries

More than 80 metrics that are part of the Gallup Macroeconomic Path – a behavioral-based leadership model for successful societies

Country-specific dashboards

Searching:

Searches may be by Topic, Geography or Keyword. A Topic search is often a good starting point:

Note that your data source is either the World Poll or U.S. Daily.

I first searched for “Confidence in National Government” in Southeast Asian countries from 2014-15, ranking the results from most to least confident in the following table (exportable to an Excel spreadsheet):

Next, I compared “Confidence in National Government” among selected Southeast Asian countries for the time range 2012-15, creating the chart below:

Finally, I mapped the same metric for Asian-Pacific nations in 2014, which returned the map below:

The map view of the rankings is in varying shades of green. The Communist government in China, which allows restrictively limited Gallup polling, did not authorize this particular question, hence it is grayed out, as are North Korea and Papua New Guinea, given that Gallup doesn’t operate in those countries.

For incisive U.S. polling data and topical articles of interest, try searching the Gallup Brain. In addition to historical polling results from 1935 to the present day, current articles cover a wide spectrum of topics ranging from the public’s perception of foreign trade, affordability of housing, health and healthcare, crime, governance, perceptions of Presidential candidates, how Americans view Israel and France (favorably overall), and how we are viewed by the rest of the world (positively overall).

HINT: If this box appears at the bottom of your screen, click close to see the link to Gallup Brain.

Summary:

For novices, navigation can be a bit tricky when setting up metrics for the desired search results. For example, you will need to tweak your metrics when shifting from tables to charts and maps. That said, it becomes less a problem the more one uses the database. As always, ask a Librarian for assistance if you have any questions when using our research products.

Overall, this is a superlative resource to use for both domestic and public opinion data and is a very helpful addition to the library’s offerings.

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. No endorsement or recommendation of any specific products or services is intended or implied.

Contents contributed by Michael G. Arden, Audio-Visual Librarian and Liaison Librarian to the Department of Social Sciences, and Manja Yirka, Continuing Resources Librarian and Liaison Librarian to the Department of Chemistry and Life Sciences.

February 1 marked the 72nd the anniversary of the publication of the manuscript describing the experiments and conclusions leading to the discovery of deoxyribonucleic acid, now commonly called DNA.

Three molecular biologists demonstrated that the genetic transformation of bacteria is caused by DNA, providing direct evidence about the chemical nature of hereditary information. Their discovery, doubted at first, eventually led geneticists to understand that DNA carried life’s genetic blueprints.

Until the Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment demonstrated that DNA is the hereditary chemical of life, most biologists believed that the substance responsible for heredity was protein because of its extensive diversity and variability. The Avery-MacLeod-McCarty discovery revolutionized the study of the biological sciences by focusing the study of living systems on molecular mechanisms and by changing the focus of the chemical nature of heredity from proteins to DNA. (http://0-search.ebscohost.com.usmalibrary.usma.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89116362&site=eds-live)

In 1941, geneticist Maclyn McCarty extended MacLeod’s experiments by using an enzyme to digest the type III polysaccharide to remove it from the preparation. By early 1942, upon addition of alcohol to the preparation, a stringy, fibrous material precipitated. McCarty showed that all enzymes that degraded DNA destroyed the transforming principle, but inactivating these enzymes by heat eliminated their ability to destroy the transforming principle. By this time, the laboratory was convinced that the transforming and hereditary chemical was DNA

Cadets in CPT Hummel’s Intro to Biology class write their definition of the role of DNA.

According to CPT Hummel, Dept. of Chemistry & Life Sciences, “The experiment by Avery, MacLeod, and McCarthy was pivotal in that it confirmed Frederick Griffith’s observation of transformation from the 1920s which had been scrutinized as potentially being contaminated. Cadets in the Introduction to Biology course look at both experiments to see how over 80 years ago scientists were just discovering the role of DNA as our genetic material. This experiment demonstrated that DNA was responsible for transforming the benign R type cells into the virulent S type.” Coincidentally, this week he was actually going over this experiment with the cadets, as they begin their genetics block.

Cadets in CPT Hummel’s Intro to Biology class discuss the role of DNA.

LTC Goodin commented that in CH375, Intro to Biology, “We cover many different experiments that led to our current understanding of DNA as the genetic material. An entire block (11 lessons) of instruction is dedicated to the central dogma of molecular biology (DNA-RNA-Protein) and the relationship between genetics, heredity, and evolution.” He believes, “that one of the most interesting ways to learn about DNA and molecular biology is to follow the experiments that led to our current understanding. This is a big part of the biology course.”

The USMA Library Staff would like to belatedly welcome Mark Danley, who joined us in August 2015. He serves in the capacity of Cataloging Librarian and has begun additional duties as Library Liaison to the Military History Division of the History Department. He will also become a member of the teaching staff in the Department of History, beginning in fall semester 2016.

Mark grew up in Virginia, and stayed there for his education through his MA degree in History at Virginia Tech. After enlisting in the Army in July 1991, he served as an airborne parachute rigger from March 1992-December 1993. He got his Ph.D. in History at Kansas State, then his MLIS at Louisiana State. He has taught military history in Norwich University’s online graduate program.

Mark is a self-proclaimed “soldier scholar,” incorporating his love for the Army with the study of history, and brings the “Airborne Spirit” into everything he does. His enlistment in the Army–almost 25 years ago–makes West Point’s mission all the more meaningful to him.

When asked what his most challenging experience has ever been, he quickly replied that it was getting through Airborne School. According to Mark, he was not very coordinated back then, so it look him longer than most to learn the necessary skills. However, he was super motivated and had great instructors who took the time to train him.

On the other hand, maybe finishing his Ph.D. was more difficult? He states that every single scholarly work he has ever produced or published has been HARD (note the caps). Mark is a tedious and labor-intensive researcher, a trait which he says is the nature of his specialty. Self-deprecatingly, he states that he is a bad writer, revising numerous times to get his work into an academically publishable form. I seriously doubt that is true, but his refuse-to-give-up attitude has served him well. He has 4 scholarly articles to his credit. He is also a strong contributor to Name Authority Cooperative of Program for Cooperative Cataloging (NACO) and recently gave a presentation on Problems and Solutions in Name Authority Work for Military-Related Materials at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Conference in January, 2016.

In his spare time, Mark likes to work out at a CrossFit gym and practices hot yoga. His following of NCAA football–especially Army and all his Alma Maters–has diminished this past fall due to his move here, but he intends to pick up on that later this year.

Mark’s enthusiasm for librarianship and zeal for the Army will greatly enrich his interactions with our staff and cadets. Welcome, Mark!

“When the Snow Comes, They Will Take You Away” by Eric Newby is a vivid first-person account of adventure during WWII. The authorEric Newby, as a very young British officer, was a prisoner of war in Italy. He escaped in the chaos following the Italian surrender in the late summer of 1943, and spent the winter on the run from the Germans. The humanity and compassion of the Italian peasants is unforgettable, scratching for a living while stashing away food for a lone Englishman at grave risk of Nazi retaliation, yet revealing an uncanny intelligence beyond fiction at several turns. This book depicts an unusual currency in human affairs, where the dollar holds no sway to common decency and suffering in the most barren regions. The book is a thriller, a love story, and a tribute to the brave generosity of the many local partisans who helped Newby survive.

The views expressed in this post are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. No endorsement or recommendation of any specific products or services is intended or implied.